


Always been a loner

by rainicornsan



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, F/M, HP AU, Harry Potter AU, M/M, Nyotalia, Yule Ball, at least i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-09-11
Packaged: 2018-04-20 05:24:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4775279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainicornsan/pseuds/rainicornsan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Matthew Williams thinks that he will never find someone who loves him.<br/>But, without him knowing, there is someone who has observed him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always been a loner

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!  
> This is my first fanfiction in the APH fandom and my first fanfiction in English (and in AO3).  
> I am Italian, btw.  
> I hope I didn't make too many mistakes.  
> Of course, if I did I would like to know c:  
> I decided to do this because I am afraid I am starting to misfire as a fanwriter.  
> I don’t know if it is because the Italian archive in which I write (EFP fanfiction) is starting to _go bye bye_ or because I am recently writing about crack pairings, but I wanted to see what happened if I started to write here.  
>  I wanted to start with something sweet and non/angsty, so I kind of translated an Italian fanfiction of mine with the same name (you find it [here](http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewuser.php?uid=506200)).
> 
> I put some FrUk hints (onesided). I don’t know why I did it, since I don’t ship them.  
> No, I don't hate America c: Came here, lil baby~  
> And yes, I know that maybe I pictured a crybaby and too shy Canada, but he is a nation: he had lots of time to deal with his loneliness, but he wouldn't have that much time to do that as a human (and as a teen!).

 

 

Matthew hated that smoking: it was so different from his usual and comfortable jeans and hoodies.

It prickled all of his skin.

 

He meandered awkwardly between screaming people, fairy lights and nice sparkly dresses worn by the girls, considering the idea to vanish silently from the Great Hall to refuge in a bathroom.

Most of everything else, he wanted to furiously scratch himself and to take that damned jacket off.

And then, flee to the Hufflepuff dormitory and do something less depressing than attending the Yule Ball without a partner.

 

Thinking again of the bathrooms, an impulse of disgust passed through him: only the sky knew of how many happy little couples making out and/or putting effort into other embarrassing activities it was teeming with. And he would have been the classical person in disgrace sobbing in a cubicle, curled up on the bowl.

Maybe, if he went to the girls’ lavatory, he could have a talk with Moaning Myrtle. Usually, the little couples were holed up in the boys’ one, not there.

 

Right in that moment, one of said _couples_ collapsed on top of him.

Matthew wasn’t exactly in the middle of the dance floor and he was perfectly visible, but that was routine to him, so he limited himself to nod at the girl’s distract ‘sorry’ .

He went unnoticed everywhere he went and whomever he was with.

The straw that had broken the camel’s back had come when even his sweet, adorable best friend Katyusha[1] had forgotten about him, leaving Matthew talking to himself alone in the middle of Hogsmeade.

Never mind, he couldn’t even say he had made a fool of himself: as usual, nobody was watching.

 

It took him another moment to realise that the girl was Alice Kirkland. She was dancing with his brother![2]

His eyes grew wide. Yes, he had seen well.

Finally, they were together. After seven years.

Alice and Alfred met each other in the first year, since Slytherin and Gryffindor had a lot of shared lessons.

To be precise, they had known each other when, one of the first days of school, she had noticed his drawl American accent and murmured something about someone coming from ‘a stupid colony’.

When he pulled her hair, they ended up to the head of the Gryffindor house and endured a good lecture about the unpleasantness of seeming ‘so patriotically and uncivilly Muggles’.

 

_Just adorable._

 

Since his first year (when Alice and Alfred were at their third) he could remember lots of other episodes: an infinite list of pranks to which he had often assisted up close.

 

He stopped at the door to watch them dance.

They were stamping each other’s feet. Alice was surely muttering something sharp, from the way she was moving her lips.

His brother sneered something and then he bowed down and kissed her unexpectedly. Alice blushed deliciously, yet without changing expression.

 

They were so _sweet_. He sighed a little bit because of that and a little bit because even that fool of his brother was happy with a lover.

Matthew was a loner. He was evidently destined to be a loner forever, just like he had always been. Nobody would have ever loved him the way the two of them loved each other.

 

He smiled and waved at Katyusha, who was dancing with a guy he vaguely remembered to be Turkish[3].

“So cute.” commented someone by his side with an indefinable voice.

He didn’t even turn around. If he did, he would have surely found out that the voice was a figment of his imagination or that it wasn’t directed to him.

 

“ _Petit fleur_ , I am talking to you. Isn’t that Jones right there your brother?”.

 

Matthew held his breath back for a moment.  _Petit fleur_.

Someone spoke French. Someone _was_  French: the accent persisted even when the guy spoke English.

He sighed. Beloved French.

 

He preferred again not to turn around. He didn’t want to ruin it all.

“ _Oui_.”.

 

“You are different from him.

When he gets into a room, he makes everyone turn and he takes by force the things he wants, even without doing it on purpose. Much as what happened with Al-”.

 

He stopped abruptly. Was he about to say  _Alice_?

Maybe, but Matthew didn’t care, busy as he was to metabolize that someone could know him well enough not to mistake him with for his brother and to distinguish their characters.

He proceeded, clearing his throat: “Um. Not you, anyway.

You look more shy and educate. I _observed_ you.”.

 

Matthew thanked everything that he didn’t add another _petit_ fleur, or he would have run away.

Someone _observing him_ was creepy enough.

 

He felt his neck and his cheeks hot. He was sure as hell he was blushing.

“You _observed_ me?”.

 

“Sometimes, yes.

You intrigued me. You and Jones don’t even look like possible relatives, despite you do look alike.”.

 

At that point, he couldn’t retrain himself anymore: he turned around and-…Oh.

Deliciously intense eyes, soft-looking hair (only the sky knew how much he wanted to fit his hands in that hair) and a smile… Well, wow.

How didn’t he recognize his voice before?

That boy in the same year as his brother’s, the one who came from Paris two years earlier (Beauxbatons, maybe?), the one he found so _fascinating_. Francis Bonnefoy, in simple terms.

The one who irritated Alice so much. He even remembered some insults of a  ‘ _stupid frog_!’-like sort every time he dared to open his mouth improperly. Well, nothing else than the fair treatment after months of undesired courting.

 

The one who… Wait, why wasn’t he accompanied?

Matthew blushed, wondering for how long he had stayed silent.

“I can speak loosely with you,  _n’est pas_?”.

 

Francis waited until he slightly nodded, going on:

“I don’t like to watch Jones while he dances with _her_.

Can we go somewhere else to speak?  
After all, neither you nor me have a partner.”.

 

Matthew hesitated for some seconds, but he ended up nodding nervously, blushing a little bit.

They went out without a word.

“Um… Where are we headed?”.

 

“I don’t know,  _mon cher_.”.

 

It was official, now: Matthew was on fire.

Why the heck did he call him that way? Matthew felt too daunt to ask; maybe he wanted to escape elegantly, without injuring him.  
They had passed already four corners, while Francis suddenly stopped.

 

Despite his question, Matthew wasn’t even trying to figure out where they were, putting all his effort in controlling the explosive feeling that seemed to take his heart and his stomach every time he directed his glare towards Francis’ shoulders and back.

 

He stared silently while he turned at a very slow pace towards him, with the moonlight accompanying his movements. It filtered from the windows, sprinkling of damp silver and ivory everything surrounding them.

In that moment, everything in the hallway seemed _so precious_.

But to Matthew, the most precious thing was right the person in front of him.

 

_Six months. Six months. Only six months are left. Then, I will never see him again._

That was Francis’ last year. He couldn’t help feeling pity for himself for succeeding in thinking such sad things with him right there, looking at _him_ , noticing _him_ and talking to _him_.

 

He had left the Ball without looking for someone to dance with.

Who knew for how much time he had observed Matthew?

He was so curious. He wanted to know.

He had to, because there was so little time left.

 

He forced himself to open his mouth, cracking the harmony of that instant made of gazes, unmovable in time: “Why me?”.

 

Still staring at him, Francis reached one lock of his hair with two fingers and grabbed it delicately.

Matthew hated his hair. It wasn’t long, it wasn’t short, it had a strange colour and a stupid curly cowlick. It vaguely resembled Francis’, but (obviously) he looked much better.  
He couldn’t recall other moments like that in which he could feel himself implode and explode so much. His throat felt dry, sealed hermetically by a boulder of feelings he painfully knew how to identify.

He couldn’t almost move.

 

Francis’ eyes seemed to flicker: “I didn’t want to watch them dance because it _burns_ ,  _Mathieu_.

It burns because I _lost_ , do you understand? But I don’t harbour too much bitterness.”.

 

_There we go again._

Like always, the subject switched from him to the rest of the world. Without even touching him, moreover. He was used to it, yes, but Matthew could bet that, at the time, he was _burning_ more than Francis could have burnt watching at Alice and Alfred dancing. And he had even thought he was _diverse_ amongst the others!

He should have known.

With his tears, the rock in his throat got heavier, starting to slid downwards and scratching his soul.

 

“Are you okay,  _chiot_?”.

 

Matthew closed his eyes: “Don’t call me that.”.

Only God knew the price that opening his mouth for the second time costed to him.

 

His eyelids felt like the banks of a river about to flood. He was harming himself, staying there.

Suddenly, he perceived two soft lips brushing his forehead.

Still, he didn’t open his eyes yet.

 

“You feel offended because I talked about them.”.

 

A kiss on the tip of his nose followed, making him feel as if Francis was washing his heart with the plates’ detergent.

Everything looked so sweet, but horribly out of place at the same time; that couldn’t really be happening to him.

He was above that all. Certainly, not because of his own will.

 

“But, you see, I just wanted to tell you about my bad mood.

I observed you because I wanted to find out how you and that boor of your brother could be related. It burns because it is the memory of a defeat, not because I still want Alice.

You know, the person I want is… above this all.”.

 

Lips against lips. Soft, gentle, momentary.

 

He didn’t want to waste time in choosing which of the two shocks elaborate, between that kiss and those words; he carried his face ahead blindly.

His cheeks and his forehead rested on a smooth surface; Francis’ chest.

He smelled nice, maybe a little bit too sweet. Certainly, nothing of simple.

 

Matthew closed his eyes when he noticed the other’s fingers twisting with his hair, gently massaging some points of his skin and lowering to brush lightly his ears, in a slow worship that almost made him move.

They didn’t talk for some minutes, communicating through their hands and lips.

 

 _Their_ silence was so good.

 

*

 

“ _Mathieu?_ ”.

 

Matthew felt his name vibrate in Francis’ throat, since he was leaning on top of him.

He ignored, as always, the deadly scowls coming from the first years’ children, passing by their sides: “Mm?”.

 

“I know what’s bothering you, but… I will visit you.”.

 

Matthew raised his head, meeting the shadow of the tree they were lying underneath to, thrilled: “You won’t go to France?”.

 

“ _Non_ ,  _chiot._

I will open a store in Diagon Alley.

You know, a little _retro_ and classy thing, just like I told you.

What should I have done? Should I have left my boyfriend all alone?”.

 

His heart warmed up.

He perfectly knew that Francis loved his France, but he wanted to stay there.

He was the only ‘thing’ that made him remain: the boy should be really in love.

 

Matthew gave him a light kiss, and then he curled up to his chest again.

“ _Merci._ ”.

 

“Thanks to you,  _cher._ ”.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

>  **French words** (because I adore the idea that Francis uses nice names about random things to call his Mathieu):
> 
> petit fleur: little flower.  
> mon cher: my dear.  
> chiot: puppy.
> 
> [1] Katyusha is one of the names (as Marya, Sofia and Irunya) Himaruya gave as possible names of Ukraine.  
> Also, I have this headcanon stuck in my mind about Ukraine and Canada’s friendship (indeed, you find some people shipping them).
> 
> [2] Because of many things: one, genderswap is a fair and good thing.  
> Two, UsUk is a fair and good thing.  
> Three, I am madly in love with nyo!Iggy, so there she is!  
> Four, a little part of me feels guilty for writing always slash, yaoi, yuri, shonen-ai, shoujo-ai and femmeslash, so I wrote about a het!verse UsUk.  
> Not that I dislike it. They would be cute even if they were a pillow and the couch on which it is placed on. #yestoall
> 
> [3] I ship Turkey with Iceland or with Ukraine, so here we are!


End file.
